06.07.2018 – Three times spots

Today we had three times the spot-pleasure on our 12 o’clock tour. While in two situations, the main group swam in about 200m distance through the sea, one to two subgroups enjoyed our company.Someanimals jumped impatienly towards us and enjoyed a ride in the bow wave of the Stenella. These long jumps are used to move forward quickly. Not that that’s a problem for these brisk marine mammals, but why not take advantage of the fact that air resistance is lower than water resistance.

In an encounter with Atlantic spotted dolphins, our guests sometimes ask us if there are two different species in the group. Who would not think to think so when seeing animals with and without spots in the group. But this dolphin species has a special feature: its color changes in the course of its life! While small calves are uniformly gray and later, the upper half is gray, but the belly is white, juveniles have several dark spots on the belly and white spots on the flank. The older the animal gets, the more numerous and densely the spots are on the entire body.

On the way back we met a small group of four of Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). In her midst a super little calf. I wonder if it was the offspring we talked about last week in our blog (25.06.2018 -The discovery of an extraordinary species: The fizzy whale)?

By Fatima Kutzschbach

Sightings of the day

Ribeira Brava

09:00 Common dolphins, Atlantic Spotted dolphins, Pilot whales

13:30 Atlantic Spotted dolphins, Bottlenose dolphins

Stenella

12:00 Atlantic Spotted dolphins, Bottlenose dolphins